


leave me in the cold

by freshbloom



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, and i hate it but its the first fic i ever wrote so im posting it anyway, mike is sad and missing el, so prepare yourself for blanket forts and crying, this is honestly just pure angst, we all know how this type of story goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 11:33:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13716819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshbloom/pseuds/freshbloom
Summary: thanks for reading everyone! my tumblr is @freshxbloom, feel free to leave requests or comments if you have any!





	leave me in the cold

Mike couldn’t recall a time when he had ever felt so cold. It was the kind of chill that resonated no matter your efforts to warm up, the kind that seemed to emanate, somehow, from inside your own self. He had always known warmth, had always been able to find it, and most of all, he had always recognized the cold only in long December nights and black ice on the road. Never in the beating of his own heart. But, then, standing at the foot of the basement stairs, staring out into what once had been a place of comfort and joy, Mike felt, with a sort of resigned terror, that perhaps he was meant to feel this way- or worse, that he always had, that he was finally seeing the world (seeing himself) the way it should be seen. No warmth. Just all-encompassing and neverending cold.

He registers, in some place in his mind that is not frozen with grief, that it was a mere few hours ago when Mike could swear he felt every lovely thing on Earth spring up inside him. When it was the two them in that cafeteria. Mike and El, El and Mike. An echo of Promise and Because, it’s different and Hold on a little longer and Goodbye, Mike. She’d kissed him and she’d understood and she’d saved his life and she was everything and then- all at once, nothing. He thinks she must’ve taken all the warmth with her, all those lovely things in his damn chest. It’s a thought that’s somehow comforting. He’d freeze over a million times if it meant she’d be warm wherever she is now. (Because she is somewhere, alive, he tells himself. Some deeper, cruel part of him disagrees. He lets the cold swallow it). 

Deliberately, he shakes his paralysis and steps into the basement, moving toward what had dragged him down here in the first place; the blanket fort. The structure is as it was when they’d left it hours before. A haphazard mess of blankets and chairs, something he’d never really cared to use before it became her mess of blankets and chairs. Her absence now freshly bruising, Mike drops down and crawls in, his Supercomm clutched in one hand. He tries to swallow his fear when he finds that the fort is colder than anywhere else, despite the layers of blankets. The ice in his own chest expands, and he can feel himself begin to shiver, though he’s not sure if it’s from the cold or the pain or the fear. All he knows is that his teeth are chattering and his hand is shaking as he lifts the Supercomm up to his mouth and God, he thinks he might never feel warm again. 

“El? It’s Mike. Are you there?”

Static. More cold. He shifts and tries again.

“El, please… Are you okay? Just- just if you’re alive out there, I need to know.”

More static. He listens for a while before he realizes he’s been shaking because he’s crying. Something inside him snaps, as though now that he's aware of his own tears he can’t seem to stop. The Supercomm drops from his hands and Mike falls back into the blankets. It gets colder. His chest heaves and he’s scared he can feel himself going numb. Scared that she will never return and he will feel this way forever. That it will only keep getting colder. As though the world had only a capacity for warmth when they were together. Mike and El. El and Mike. Everything and then nothing. 

He lays there until the shivering has stopped and his tears have disappeared and he has fallen into a dreamless sleep. It’s the only time he lets himself sleep in the fort in the year that she’s gone. When he leaves the next morning, Mike feels some semblance of warmth again, and he thinks he must’ve left his heart behind.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading everyone! my tumblr is @freshxbloom, feel free to leave requests or comments if you have any!


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